Russia uses fake video footage to ‘prove’ U.S. aiding ISIS

It turns out that a photo tweeted by the Russian Ministry of Defense on Tuesday, claiming to show “irrefutable” proof that the United States has allied with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), came from a video game.

Early Tuesday morning, the Russian Ministry of Defense tweeted out what appeared to be aerial photos of a convoy of vehicles driving along a dirt road.

“This is the irrefutable evidence that there is no struggle against terrorism as the whole global community believes. The US are actually covering the ISIS combat units to recover their combat capabilities, redeploy, and use them to promote the American interests in the Middle East,” the officials wrote in the English version of the tweet posted in both English and Russian, as captured on Archive.org.

Astute Twitter users quickly noticed that one of the images used as evidence came from a fake source – the YouTube trailer for the mobile phone video game, “AC-130 Gunship Simulator.”

The Ministry of Defense did a sloppy job cutting out the image they wanted, leaving some of the text from the YouTube trailer which warns users: “Development footage. This is a work in progress. All content is subject to change.” The image clearly contains a portion of the words: “All content.”

Another image appears to be taken from an old Iraqi Ministry of Defense video.

Russian Twitter users have been expressing their outrage at the blatant deception.